Author: andy@freedomsplash.com

Our enthusiasm had faded a little as the days turned into weeks since Julie’s surgery. Now the doctor gave us a little bad news… Julie has regressed a little since Monday. They’ve had to increase her oxygen level and the doctor said that the carbon dioxide level in her blood is a little high.   She… Continue reading Day 24 Update #23

I took the week of parental leave from work after Julie’s surgery. This finally gave me the time to focus on school and getting caught up. I had slipped further behind that I realized. Since I read so slowly, it took a long time to get caught up on the 3000 pages needed for that… Continue reading Three Week Update #22

Not only had we been able to plan our day, but the plan actually occurred! We felt so good at this time. Just came back from the hospital… Julie is doing fabulously. I was there for three hours while Sarah went to her OB follow-up appointment and then visited Julie for a while. Sarah changed… Continue reading Day 16 Update #21

We had sent out two optimistic updates in a row and this makes it three… Julie is stable, eating and coming down off of her anesthetic/pain meds. She was promoted from the oscillator to the normal breathing machine, so she is doing much better. Her weight is up, but she continues to lose fluid. Her… Continue reading Two Week Update #20

We were still reeling from the revelation that Julie didn’t have a CCAM but a tumor. When a lobe of the lung doesn’t develop properly during gestation and becomes a useless tissue that doesn’t perform the function of the lung, doctors call the tissue a CCAM. Since each human lung consist of three lobes (for… Continue reading Day 14 Update #19

Even before completing the last update about Julie, we received a phone from the NICU. My brother Peter had this posted on FB… Sarah just called. It won’t be a straight line with Julie. Since the 16th, she started more fluid/swelling, and they are preparing to insert a catheter near her heart to reduce it.… Continue reading Surgery Update #18

After the photo shoot on Wednesday night Julie began to have some serious reversals. Both Sarah and I noticed that she wasn’t looking or acting her best on Wednesday, but didn’t say anything to Peter and Marla. By Thursday night she took a turn for the worse… Julie has had some reversals since our last… Continue reading Day 12 Update #17

We felt so confident about Julie’s progress that we invited my brother Peter to come over for a photo shoot of Julie. Given the restrictions of the NICU, Sarah went in with Peter and I went in later with Peter’s wife Marla. Peter took some very nice pictures…

As things began to stabilize, I sent out updates further apart. This update also included a summary as I added new people to the update list… There was little change over the weekend, so I skipped the day six and seven updates. Julie lost one oz on Friday night, but gained back 6 oz on… Continue reading One Week Update #15

I combined Thursday and Friday into next update I sent out on Saturday: Julie continues to improve. As of Thursday night, her weight was 4 lbs 10 oz. She has lost over half of the excess fluid in just 60 hours. Her chest and stomach are now well defined as are her facial features. The… Continue reading Day Four and Five Update #14